October 2018 - Toward Freedom

Jair Bolsonaro is Elected President of Brazil. Read His Extremist, Far-Right Positions in his Own Words

Andrew Fishman October 29, 2018 Andrew Fishman

JAIR BOLSONARO WAS elected president of Brazil on Sunday evening. The far-right candidate received more than 55 percent of valid votes. His opponent, Fernando Haddad of the Workers’ Party, received less than 45 percent. In a country with compulsory voting, almost 29 percent of adults preferred to annul or not cast their ballot.

Across Brazil, city streets echoed with fireworks, shouts, and car horns as preliminary election results came in. Thousands of supporters, many dressed in green and yellow, assembled outside the president-elect’s beach-front residence in Rio de Janeiro. On São Paulo’s main street, Avenida Paulista, police used tear gas to separate Haddad and Bolsonaro voters. read more

A Letter to Brazil, from a Friend Living Under Duterte

Walden Bello October 29, 2018 Walden Bello

Source: Foreign Policy in Focus

This commentary is a joint publication of Foreign Policy In Focus and TheNation.com.

Dear friends:

I’m writing to you on the eve of your going to the polls to determine the future of your wonderful country.

I think it’s no exaggeration to say that the fate of Brazil hangs in the balance. It’s also hardly a hyperbole to assert that the election will have a massive geopolitical significance, since if Brazil votes for Jair Bolsonaro, the extreme right will have come to power in the western hemisphere’s two biggest countries. Like many of you, I’m hoping for a miracle that will prevent Bolsonaro from coming to power. read more

“We Will Fight”: Brazilians Pledge to Resist Fascist President-Elect Bolsonaro

Michael Fox October 29, 2018 Michael Fox

“We will not accept this kind of government. The women are not going back to the kitchen. The gays are not going back into the closet,” said Mariana Mitic, a Rio de Janeiro University Fine Arts student. “We are not going back. We are not bowing down. We will fight.”

Climate Change and Its Staggering Refugee Crisis

Todd Miller October 29, 2018 Todd Miller

Research confirms that massive migration, into the millions, will be an inevitable consequence of global warming.

Life Laid Bare in Honduras: How the Migrant Caravan Makes Neoliberal Dictatorship Visible

Beth Geglia October 25, 2018 Beth Geglia

While Hondurans have been fleeing to the U.S. in record numbers since 2009, the migrant experience has so far been one of isolation, invisibility, and powerlessness. In the thousands and out in the open, their migration has become a spectacle of vulnerability that is impossible to ignore.

Latin America’s Saint: How Oscar Romero Was a Martyr for Social Justice

Jeff Abbott October 24, 2018 Jeff Abbott

The slain Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero was declared a Saint by the Catholic Church on October 14. But for many people in Latin America, Romero was already a saint.